US sinks Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, NATO downs Iranian missile heading for Türkiye
CNA
The missile incident was the first time that Türkiye, which has NATO's second-largest military, was drawn into the conflict.
DUBAI: The United States-Israel conflict with Iran widened sharply on Wednesday (Mar 4) after a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, killing at least 80 people, and NATO air defences destroyed an Iranian ballistic missile fired towards Türkiye.
The escalation came as the powerful son of Iran's slain supreme leader emerged as a frontrunner to succeed him, suggesting Tehran was not about to buckle to pressure, five days after the US and Israel launched a military campaign that has killed hundreds and convulsed global markets.
The missile incident is the first time that Türkiye – which borders Iran and has NATO's second-largest military – has been drawn into the conflict, but US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said there was no sense that it would trigger the Atlantic alliance's collective-defence clause.
In a sign of the conflict's expanding reach, Hegseth said the US submarine strike hit an Iranian vessel off Sri Lanka's southern coast, thousands of kilometres from the Gulf, as fighting paralysed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz for a fifth day, choking off vital Middle East oil and gas flows.
US President Donald Trump has pledged to provide insurance and naval escorts for ships exporting energy from the region to contain soaring costs, with oil prices still stuck on Wednesday at their highest in more than a year.
Trump said the US strikes had "totally demolished" most of Kharg Island and warned that more could follow, adding: "We may hit it a few more times just for fun."
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